We continue with the word's of Jim Emerton

All pigeon racing, the birds and results depend upon the practical application of human knowledge from the mind of man. The top men have studied and know what it takes to be greats of the game like Mark Gilbert or Roger Lowe. The personality of the fancier, the quality of ideas are so important to sourcing, breeding and racing the birds. It is easy to get good bred birds yet so difficult to master conditioning of the birds for racing. Study and learn what it take?s to be an icon of the game and go from there-act upon ideas. Jim Emerton.

Racers are a diverse lot, with complex genetic ancestry-they are mongrels. A good one can be bred at any time on a clever racing system. I do like near ancestors to be proven, quality birds in terms of results, yet pigeons are pigeons and good ones can be far removed from result winners. In my partnership all our birds are well bred, yet our really good marathon racers are scarce. However, I do like inbred performance birds paired together-try and saturate the genes with performance factors. At our lofts we have closed the gene pool, yet I am experimenting with other origins in other lofts. The secret is to develop a practical breeding and racing system that works. It is logical and makes intuitive sense to breed and race around your key birds discovered in actual racing. We breed always around stamina and endurance. Jim Emerton.

With many closed in widowhood systems today, we fly all our birds as close to nature as possible from a back-garden loft. At the moment we have 4 older birds with 25 young birds that we are training in 5 tosses up to around 60 miles against the wind. We take the yearlings to 3 points in the BICC prog, yet cock only at Barcelona International over 700 miles marathon distance into the far West against prevailing winds. With 8 timings we enjoy the race from year to year as we build up our own strain of birds, based on my 42 years of racing from 71 to a measured 879 miles- who knows how far the birds fly in race reality conditions. The key is great condition of the birds when race entered-it is so easy to prepare the birds on the open loft method. Fed to appetite, young, old and stock all have the same food. With no fresh pigeons allowed into Musgrove Lofts, it is a closed gene pool. Dave Delea has won 3 Barcelona Nationals, yet we just enjoy the pleasure of this aspect of the sport. Normally, we give birds away to promising studs and mentees as we enjoy the sportsmanship in an old -fashioned way. In an imperfect world we seek to improve as fanciers and with results-Jim Emerton.

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